Disrupting the art market

Hi everyone - and welcome to the first of a regular series of blog posts I'm going to be writing on art, tech and life at Artfinder.

This weekend is going to be a busy one for the Artfinder team, as we're taking part in three separate events in London. Our COO, Michal Szczesny, will be attending and judging at an IdeaJAM event to enhance the user experience of metro transportation in London and Tokyo, held by the architecture firm Gensler. For my part, I will be judging at the Art Challenge Hackathon, in which participants will develop a new art and tech business from scratch inspired by the challenges I set together with other London-based art innovators.

We're also delighted to be working with ARTROOMS 2016, an artist led fair taking place at the Meliá White House Hotel this weekend, and on Saturday 23rd, I'll also be speaking on a panel hosted by Marine Tanguy Art. The conference will comprise art academics, business entrepreneurs and artists.

The question posed deals with how the art world is moving towards an artist-led model. This is an interesting topic for us and one that got us thinking about how, whilst the art world certainly has changed and must move further towards an artist-led model, this is in fact taking place already. From our perspective, it looks more like the birth of a new art world that has freed itself of the constraints inherent of a traditional, hierarchical, and exclusive art world.

When you see that a young marketplace like Artfinder can sell 10x more art in a month than 90% of galleries sell in a year, you know the art market is being disrupted, just like Uber disrupted the taxi business. The momentous shift towards a so called "sharing economy", in which artists can directly reach a global audience (and said audience can identify their own "winners", independently of galleries and traditional gate keepers) will revolutionise how art is being bought and sold. The question is not how to run a gallery more efficiently (as discussed in the book by Magnus Resch), but what the role of the traditional gallery should be in this new world.

What do you think? If you're in London and would like to join us at any of these events please book tickets below.

ArtRooms2016 Get 30% off a three day pass using promotional code 'ARTFINDER' when booking.